I sure hope they do! Yesterday we signed our lease and secured a roof over our heads for the next 24 months! In about four weeks we’ll be living in a lovely double mastered townhouse with a deck off the bright kitchen, a backyard with a vegetable garden already offering, and a finished rec room in the basement. That finished rec room? It has its own full bath. I might not see Patrick for days at a time!

We are waiting on one piece of good news that will put finality to the Great Headache of 2007-2010. We’re getting so close but I don’t want to say a word until it’s done.

The third good thing? Well I guess the Universe will just have to surprise me with that one.

Guess what is making running super duper cool! I downloaded this Runkeeper app to my sexy new phone and it is the shit (sidebar for Kristin: I downloaded it to mah Drizzle and it is the shizzy!! Rocking my face off!! Like, oh my god!!) I was hoping there was a widget I could add to my sidebar so I would be totally shamed into a consistently strong showing, but it only seems to put up the map, not the activity stats. Maybe I have to play with it a little more.

On to making fun of me! This morning I did something I haven’t done in about a decade: I went to a Body Pump class.

I KNOW, right?

It’s just that I have no desire to ever diet myself crazy or count protein grams or focus on squatting 225 lbs again in my whole life. I did it, it was cool, I loved it at the time. Now I just want to be fit and lean and healthy. And occasionally eat pizza. I certainly don’t want any more muscle mass, but I obviously want to continue strength training. I still love lifting, but doing bodybuilding type splits without pushing as heavy as possible? Wha? I don’t really enjoy that.

So this morning I showed up at the gym for the 5:45 am Body Pump class and I got a damn good workout in! I was sweating, it was challenging, and I guarantee that I’ll be sore tomorrow. Can’t ask for much more than that. Also? The female instructor had a rockin’ body. Bonus!

It’s not that this is the end of my days in the weight room, but at least I’m mixing it up a bit. If I do Body Pump once or twice a week, then I’ll round out my strength workouts with some Turbulence Training supersets or P90X workouts.

Or, fuck it, maybe I’ll just step into the squat rack and load up as many plates as I can.

Patrick and I got evited to a party taking place on an upcoming Saturday night and after responding affirmative to being there we carefully planned our timed escape. Not that we don’t love an hour long Metro ride to a one-bathroom townhouse in DC crammed with lawyers but I think we have something else planned that night. Like ordering a movie On Demand and drinking a bottle of wine. Each. That’s our kind of party.

In 2004 I lived in Solana Beach, second only to Coronado in The Greatest Places I’ve Ever Lived Ever In My Entire Life and also More Reminders of My Most Regretted Decision Also Known As Moving To Virginia.

That information isn’t terribly relevant to the story, except that I miss being there. Thanks for indulging me.

Solana Beach is the entry to the northern part of the county, directly across from the Del Mar Racetrack. I lived a about a mile from the beach making it “inland” and also more affordable. I sort of befriended a quirky but nice girl whose name isn’t Kelly but whom I’m going to call Kelly. We didn’t really hang out all that much, since she was more of a party girl, but we texted from time to time and I saw her whenever I went to the salon where she worked. Which was fairly often because girls in Southern California spend a lot of time on various waxing, polishing, and coloring needs.

Kelly was “friendly” with various athletes, police officers, and other wealthy somebodies in San Diego and one night she invited me to a party in Rancho Santa Fe. I was super nervous about going, even after she assured me that my planned outfit would be just fine and she gave me the passcode to relay to the guard so I’d be able to get in.

Rancho Santa Fe is the third most expensive place to live in the entire country and has the highest income communities in the U.S. I pulled up to the house and it was, how shall I say? Large.

I let myself in and followed the noise to the kitchen where most of the people had congregated to enjoy the catering and champagne. The attendance ranged from much younger than me to much older than me and the outfits spanned from micro minis to suits. I found Kelly and hung by her side, feeling wildly out of place and epically uncool. She pointed people out and gave me tidbits of gossip and introduced me to all her young, pretty friends wearing way skimpier clothing than me.

As is the way with young, pretty girls there seemed to be a lot of drama. Almost every one of them needed Kelly to listen to one problem or another and whisked her away for whispered advice.

I didn’t plan on staying for very long and within an hour and a half hour I was starting to eye my watch. Standing in a group with Kelly and some of the young pretties I tried to find my out when an older, obviously wealthy gentleman approached. He put his arms around a couple of the girls and casually asked who wanted to make $500. Kelly nodded a couple of the girls out of the group and they all walked off with the man to a room.

HOLY FUCKBALLS! Kelly was a pimp!

Needless to say I didn’t bother waiting for “an out”, I just got the hell out of there.

I went home, put on sweatpants and plopped onto the couch. I opened a beer, grabbed the remote and settled in for the night.

I’ve run into WWPT a couple of times since then and he is just tickled with going out of his way to say hello to me and ask “so how’s it going?” I’m not sure if he’s genuinely trying to be nice, or if he thinks this will make me uncomfortable (it doesn’t). Either way, I find it amusing and always smile, and answer him with a hello and “good n’you?”

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AMYELLA

Amyella (pronounced Amy-ella) is a pseudonym for Amy Levitt, a fitness and health food fanatic and a beach girl at heart. She has been sharing her sometimes nonsensical thoughts and self-amusing stories online since 2002 and currently spends a good deal of her time wrangling her 90 pound Rottweiler and 60 pound Boxer. Which is quite a show.The origin of the name Amyella.